HP Source: Liars – ‘Never was so much damage caused by so few to so many.’

 

We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thing; 17^th December 2020: LIARS! By Philip Gilbert

 

‘So when you tell lies I always be in your way

 

I’m nobody’s fool and I know all ’cause I know

What I know..’

 

This week we focus on the Brexit withdrawal deal, will we, or won’t we have one.

As ‘Liar’ is a contentious term, we will consider some of the wonderful quotes the government has made about Brexit, but, before doing so, here is one of my own where I take the liberty of paraphrasing Churchill, ‘Never was so much damage caused by so few to so many.’

We start the whoppers with the ‘Leave’ campaigns highly contentious claim that the UK will be able to spend £350m a week extra on the NHS post-Brexit.

In June 2017 David Davies told us, ‘You can be sure there will be a deal’

Not to be outdone in July 2017, Johnson said, ‘There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal’

In July 2019 the delusions continued with Liam Fox, the international trade secretary; ‘The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history’

November 2019 Johnson repeatedly told us he had ‘an oven-ready deal’ for Brexit
 

‘I never promised it would be a huge success’

 
In fact, the only truthful comment was from Nigel Farage, the man largely responsible for the debacle that is Brexit, who told LBC radio in May 2018, ‘I never promised it would be a huge success’.

Whereas, in reality we overestimated our importance to the EU, assuming that they would be so desperate to trade with us that no cost would be too much. So much so that we didn’t listen to them; on 24 June 2016, the day after the Brexit referendum, the EU’s then top trio of Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk and Martin Schulz issued the bloc’s first formal response to a decision they said they regretted, but respected.

The EU was united, the presidents of the European commission, council and parliament said, and would defend its stability and its interests. Any agreement with the UK must therefore be ‘balanced in terms of rights and obligations’.

Following that, German’s chancellor Angela Merkel and François Hollande, France’s president, said, ‘There can,’ Merkel said, ‘be no cherry-picking’ of Europe’s single market. There must be a palpable difference between members of the European family, and non-members’. Hollande agreed, ‘The UK must face the consequences of its decision’.
 

‘The UK must face the consequences of its decision’

 

Their stance has been consistent, last week Ursula von de Leyen, Juncker’s successor, said, ‘the principle of fair competition is a precondition to privileged access to the single market, it is the largest single market in the world, and it is only fair that competitors to our own companies face the same conditions on our own market.’

Clément Beaune, France’s new Europe minister, agreed. ‘The British want tariff-free access to the single market, but without any conditions on social, environmental, labour, health, safety standards,’ he said this week. ‘That’s unacceptable.’

Merkel – still Germany’s chancellor – sang from the same hymn sheet. ‘Our companies must be able to count on fair competition conditions, now and in the future,’ she said. ‘One thing is clear: the integrity of the single market must be maintained.’

We forgot the old saying, ‘pride comes before a fall’. Especially when you are governed by a fool!
 

‘Oh shit, pride comes before a fall

Oh shit, and once you lose one you’ve lost them all..’

 
As I have written previously Brexit has been a festering sore for the Conservatives since we joined the EU in 1972.Brexit and the chaos it will cause, is the work of the pro-Brexit right.

This pro-Brexit right came to the fore within the Tories as part of the party’s 40-year transformation from a cautious, risk-averse institution to an unstable political force.

In 1988, Margaret Thatcher gave the legendary speech in Bruges that effectively launched modern Tory Euroscepticism, warning of the concentration of power, she said what was to become the Brexiters mantra: ‘We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimposed at European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.’

After she lost power in 1990, Thatcher in a lunch with an adviser-turned-writer called George Urban, said, ‘We are not a ‘conservative’ party we are a party of innovation, of imagination, of liberty, of striking out in new directions, of renewed national pride and a novel sense of leadership … That’s not ‘conservative’. The name is all wrong.’

Thatcher’s 10-years as PM was predicated on the return of a prosperity that, for some people, did materialise.

The extreme right went onto embrace the politics of restless radicalism, as if it was a distant utopia.

Their fanatical belief in leaving the EU at any cost, was summed-up by Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2018; ‘the overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 years’.
 

‘I’m a negative creep

I’m a negative creep

I’m a negative creep and I’am’

 

In a new book entitled, ‘Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition’, the former Economist journalist Edmund Fawcett writes: ‘Economic liberalism and nationalism point, intellectually, in opposite directions. The first is open-bordered and global; the second, sheltering, exclusive and shut-in. Both, however, when supercharged as ‘hyper’ and ‘ultra’, serve to abandon right-wing centrism.’ Each strand wants to ‘leave the liberal centre, but by different exits’. They share, he writes, ‘a destructive common purpose strong enough to conceal their differences, but with no promise of a stable alternative’.  Remarkably, some Tory Brexiteers apparently manage to believe in both happening simultaneously.

Brexit is a destroyer, offering little other than sovereignty. Coming on the back of C-19, a burgeoning budget deficit, and diminishing tax revenues, what will become of ‘levelling up’? The on-going issue is, what price will people be prepared to pay for ‘sovereignty’.
 

what price will people be prepared to pay for ‘sovereignty’

 

Many who were seduced into voting for Brexit believed they had nothing to lose. But they did. There was aviation and aerospace in south Wales, the automotive industry of the north-east, or any number of small- and medium-sized businesses that exist in the so-called ‘left behind’ places.

Underlying this anarchic mentality is their interpretation of Nationalism. For them its nostalgia with shallow and recent roots, championed by Twitter users born in the 1950s, complaining that they didn’t fight in a war that predated their birth to find their high street littered with Eastern European corner shops.

They long for a monoculture England that existed only in the hearts of people who wouldn’t have been alive for it even if it had. Moreover, it is an exclusive nationalism centred on England rather than the UK.

The ‘real’ English voter is a recent phenomenon submerged in nostalgia. The angry, left-behind voter in Mansfield is authentic. The voter in Tower Hamlets, with just as much reason to be angry is not. The angry retired solicitor in West Sussex is authentic; the working barrister in Brighton is not.
 

Part of this is age driven, the other part is racial

 

Part of this is age driven, the other part is racial; you’re only really ‘real’ if you’re white. They don’t admit their racism, hiding behind euphemisms such as ‘white working class’.

They want to make England great again, but not for the migrants, just as Trump promised Americans. Industry will be protected from foreign competition, jobs will be ringfenced and not outsourced to cheaper labour markets abroad.

However, it has achieved the opposite, wages have stagnated, workers have been disempowered, profits are kept by those with capital not the workers.

This faux nationalism doesn’t care about the nation or the union, it doesn’t care whether its free-trade area ends up smaller than its actual borders, it doesn’t care about its industries or jobs, or its imports or exports, As C-19 has highlighted they also care little about excess deaths.

Nothing better sums up their creed than Johnsons decision to send Royal Navy gunboats to defend UK fishing waters just as we might have in 1820.
 

wages have stagnated, workers have been disempowered, profits are kept by those with capital

 
Tobias Ellwood, Tory chairman of the defence select committee, said it was, ‘absolutely irresponsible’ and damaging to the UK’s reputation abroad.

This stupidity is only necessary because Johnson is overplaying his hand and flirting with No Deal, leaving business in no mans land

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said, ‘Businesses need detailed answers, not vague letters, posters or television adverts. It is hard to believe that we still have to ask ministers for clarity on the nuts and bolts of trade – things like rules of origin, customs software, tariff codes, and much more besides – just a fortnight before the end of the transition period.’

What I find fascinating about Brexit, is that, with the exception of the ardent Eurosceptics who believe leaving is the new El Dorado, it is built on negative emotions, primarily resentment which has been seized upon by opportunists such as Nigel Farage who has taken this resentment which is based on xenophobia and has channelled it into people’s ‘reality’, making the EU synonymous with ‘immigrants’.

Who can forget Farage’s infamous ‘breaking point’ billboard, of the far-right terrorist who murdered the Labour MP Jo Cox? This anti-immigrant feeling had been festering, unchecked and unchallenged for years – Brexit married with a political resentment against the ‘governing elite’, to bring about an era defining moment.

There has, however, been a less obvious victim of Brexit, the British middle class, and their children.
 

a less obvious victim of Brexit, the British middle class, and their children

 

In a way this can be linked to Labour losing its traditional voter base in the 2019 election, turning it from the party of the working class to a party of young people. There has been a collapse of the middle class among the young: the ‘proletarianisation’ of a generation.

Whilst Thatcher won a thumping majority among the young in 1983, by 2019 Labour’s lead among the under-25s was twice as big as it was when Tony Blair won his 1997 landslide.

In the 36- years post 1983 the children of affluent and working-class parents can no longer expect what could be described as a middle-class life: home ownership, job security, a decent salary, a gold-standard pension.

This is highlighted by reports of middle-class graduates joining the ever-growing food bank queues, and, by October, a quarter of the three million successful new universal credit claimants were in professional occupations, while management and office support roles are being badly hit. C-19 has increased their already growing job insecurity.

This change was started by the GFC as business used the opportunity to create a ‘flexiforce’. An ever-diminishing core of secure, well-paid occupations in favour of precarious jobs, has become the ‘new normal’ for the young, regardless of their background.
 

An ever-diminishing core of secure, well-paid occupations

 

Home ownership among 25- to 34-year-olds in England remains far lower than it was only 16-years ago. Even those aged between their mid-30s and mid-40s are three times more likely to rent than two decades ago.

The children of middle-class and working-class parents alike find themselves renting from private landlords who own 40% of the council homes sold under right to buy.

Rent cost can be crippling; Londoners earning the gross median pay can expect to hand over nearly half of their pre-tax earnings to a landlord.

For the half of young people who go to university, graduating into a well-paid job commensurate with their skills is nowhere near guaranteed, however being saddled with huge amounts of debt is.

Inheritance for many isn’t the gilded egg it is purported to be; recent research suggests that while one in seven young adults expect to inherit money before their 35th birthday, the typical inheritance age is actually between 55 and 64 – the eve of retirement; and that while they expected to receive approaching £130,000, the median amount is just £11,000.

This ‘proletarianization’ of the young that partly explains the fall of the ‘red wall’, too, as, unable to find secure, well-paid work in their own ex-industrial communities, many have been forced to move, often taking their Labour votes to safe seats in urban areas, while their home-owning parents and grandparents increasingly turn to the Conservatives.
 

Johnson is caving into the EU, and doing what he does best, i.e., what is best for him

 

As to Brexit itself the signs are that Johnson is caving into the EU, and doing what he does best, i.e., what is best for him. Lest we forget his conversion to ‘Leave’ was solely based on his desire to become party leader.

His best interests are to align himself with the all-powerful media in the form of Murdoch’s Sunday Times who, in this weekend’s edition wrote, ‘Ministers warn supermarkets to stockpile food, emergency planners predict that no deal would spark panic-buying’, while ‘health ministers have told suppliers of medicines to stockpile’. No deal makes ‘borders vulnerable to people smugglers and criminal gangs’.

The paper’s economics editor explodes Johnson’s ‘we will prosper mightily’, writing, ‘I feel sorry for those with the job of attracting new foreign capital to this country,’ exposing the post-referendum collapse in investment and productivity, long before Covid. The leader reads, ‘This looming crisis is not the Brexit the PM promised.’

Equally interesting but in a different way, the Telegraph reported ministers promising ‘billions in no-deal help for farmers and factories’, and mega-compensation for no-deal tariffs for all in the fishing, farming, chemicals, and cars sectors. Sounds rather like the EU’s ‘appalling’ common agricultural policy doesn’t it?

Support of this nature is, or should be, alien to every Thatcherite; as PM she had no time for supporting ‘lame-ducks’ which killed off mining, steel and shipbuilding.

Johnson now has a decision to make, does he appease the true diehards such as Iain Duncan Smith, who still believes ‘Surrendering to the outlandish demands of Brussels is simply not an option’, or does he read the polls?
 

• Britain Think says diehard Brexit numbers have fallen since February from 35% to 25%.
• Opinium finds more disappointed Brexiters turning away from the Tories.
• Another poll finds only one in six back no deal.
• YouGov finds that 64% think the government is handling Brexit badly, with only 23% in favour.

 

Blame for this lies with Johnson and his outrageously false promises. Brexit was brought about by well-heeled elderly Tories of shires and suburbs with less to lose, led by old-Etonian Johnson and Nigel Farage the commodities trader, bankrolled by the likes of the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who has just decamped his car factory to the EU. With the aid of the Machiavellian genius of Cummings they misled the left-behind hard-done-by ‘red wallers’ which gave them victory in the referendum.
 

Unfortunately, too many of the have nots are young

 

There is now a true divide in this country; young against old, haves and have nots. Unfortunately, too many of the have nots are young.

Age has become the defining divide in British politics, one that is exacerbated by the liquidation of the old middle-class, and the creation of a new working-class, encompassing most of the young, regardless of their family circumstances.

Brexit is owned by the old and wealthy. Once upon a time every parent wanted to see its children and grandchildren have an easier, better life.

Now it would seem that many, with romantic notions of how they struggled after the war, are consumed by a self-centred jealousy which assumes that today’s youth have it too easy.

This is to completely miss the fact, it was they who had it too easy; jobs for life, final salary pensions, increasing state pensions, and prolific housebuilding that enabled them to become homeowners.

As I wrote in my introduction, ‘Never was so much damage caused by so few to so many.’
 

‘Every child must be made aware

Every child must be made to care

Care enough for his fellow man

To give all the love that he can’

 

Meantime, we’re levelling up en route to the sunlit uplands; stay safe
 

 

In his covering note Philip said ‘this is about as angry as I can get’ saying that it some ways it was written to be intentionally offensive in advance of what most people believe will be a pig-in-lipstick deal in name only.

However, rather than a stream of invective, what he serves up  is a compendium of all of the areas of deep concern and anger that have threaded their way throughout his column and appear ever more acute as the end of the transition period looms.

Inequality has been a recurring theme, and the conclusions Philip draws about the parlous state young people in particular find themselves in is genuinely shocking; we should probably all be offended by what has happened.    

Being dubbed ‘liars’ may feel unpalatable, but as presented it is an almost unavoidable conclusion; who’d have thought the EU would close ranks and make the UK suffer for leaving the club?

Mrs T has played an increasingly important role in Philip’s thinking and here as the architect of modern Tory Euroscepticism; the Britain he goes on to describe is uncomfortable and ugly but recognisable to many.

Those ‘left behind’ may have felt they had nothing to lose by voting Brexit, yet as presented, facing a hodge-podge or sham deal, they may rue that decision; Philip posits that the ‘Little Englander’ phenomenon takes nationalism to the edge of racism and beyond.

However, their beliefs are heartfelt and passionate; Philip asks the question ‘what price sovereignty’ and is increasingly convinced that the price is the life chances of young people.

Division along generational lines has been an evolving theme, but the disproportionate effect that C-19 has had on the employment prospects of young people has exacerbated the trend; those that ‘had nothing, and it never did us any harm’ may have lost the milk of human kindness and kicked the ladder away.

Philip says ‘the lyrics are mainly easy, it’s your Xmas gift’; my scorecard tells a different story, and unfortunately I will not be joining the rush to get my entry in by the deadline – Tier 3 restrictions remain.

First off the rank ‘needs no introduction’ – fair enough, one apiece for Sex Pistols and ‘Liar’; next ‘fear and loathing in suburbia is so appropriate now’ – 2pts each for Buzzcocks and ‘Oh Shit’. OK no-one said they were subtle this week.

Then ‘there is a clue ‘utopia’ – 3 apiece for Nirvana and ‘Negative Creep’; last but not least, ‘how did the great man stop so low? But, hey it was Christmas, and he was always cool’ 3 pts for David Bowie (with a little help from Bing) and three more for ‘The Little Drummer Boy’. Enjoy!
 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

 

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